brownk wrote on 2020-04-24, 10:31:

Btw, when I switched back to linux, the first things that hit me were how fucking gorgeous and unbinding its console was, and how equally flimsy its GUI system still was. Oh, God...

How long ago was that? What GUI did you run? What shell did you use? I switched from Win7 to Linux in 2016, and I have never been more pleased. That said, I have had time to find the right distro for my need's with the right GUI, as I have had Linux experience since 1995. I have tried and tested tons of distro's since then and learned what I needed to be able to switch 99% (Still need Win to wipe drives if they are too heavy damaged). One thing I am extremely happy with, is that I can mount and read/write on an Amiga formatted harddisk in Linux.

Apple had their fair share of problems with CPU suppliers. When they announced PowerMac G5 in 2003, IBM promised them that they would have a 3GHz part within a year. When Apple switched to Intel years later, there were still no 3GHz PowerPC 970 CPUs on the horizon.

The whole industry at the moment is very dissatisfied with Intel who have shat their bed repeatedly since 2015 and it's still not clear when they will resolve their current issues. That's why Microsoft is also flirting with ARM. I guess Apple decided that two times (three times if you count rather disappointing 68040 and 68060 chips) is enough. And relying on AMD is not any better than relying on Intel, after all AMD couldn't offer competitive performance for 10 years or so...

ARM is not any better or worse than x86 performance wise, it's just an instruction set. When Acorn just released their RiscPCs in 1980s, they were consistently praised for their high performance. If you design a CPU core that is wide enough, you can have very high performance per clock indeed.

brostenen wrote on 2020-04-24, 10:54:

Ahhh..... Like, this is the same old talk again. […]
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Ahhh..... Like, this is the same old talk again.

Apple switching to PPC = People complaining.
Apple switching to x86 = People complaining.
Apple removing Floppy drive = people complaining.
Apple removing optical drive = people complaining.

Were have we seen this elsewere? Uhhh. I know.
Microsoft introducing Win95 and start button = People complaining.
Microsoft removing startbutton in Windows = People complaining.

If they move to ARM and stuff works, who freaking cares.
Especially Apple users/fanboys, as most of them only care for what is on the screen and what name it has.

Now quit complaining, unless it does not work.

always the same... people complaining about people complaining.

scnr 😁

brownk wrote on 2020-04-24, 10:31:

I think I have a fair share of Apple experience from a Message Pad all the way up to few MBPs & iPhones. I'm also an avid user o […]
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darry wrote on 2020-04-24, 00:23:

Not to sound like a troll, but if you aren't overpaying for either underpowered and/or overheating and difficult to upgrade or repair hardware with a cute GUI, you are not getting the full (modern) Apple experience .

I think I have a fair share of Apple experience from a Message Pad all the way up to few MBPs & iPhones. I'm also an avid user of OSX on non-Apple rigs since 10.4.x days. I get your point as a non-Apple user, but there're certain merits to have Apple products in your possession for sure.

All I'm saying is those days of running Apple SW on noname, Frankenstein-ish, hand-made PCs are apparently coming to an end. That's all.

Btw, when I switched back to linux, the first things that hit me were how fucking gorgeous and unbinding its console was, and how equally flimsy its GUI system still was. Oh, God...

I didn't think about it, but yeah, I bet one of the main drivers behind this is to eliminate Hackintosh machines.

However, the OS source is freely available so what will keep people from compiling it for x86/AMD64 ?

Darwin is not the same thing as macOS. All SDKs (except the Foundation Kit IIRC?) and the UI are closed source.

Ah, ok. That wasn't too clear to me when I was looking up stuff a few months ago.

I never heard any Mac users complain about the reliability of the Intel CPU. But there was an issue with CPU throttling but I think that was a Apple problem.
In any case. I think Apple has bigger problems with the Mac's in keyboard issues, and faulty logic board solder jobs.
The Intel CPU has served the Apple computer well over the years in use.

My fascination with Mac ended around 2002 with the ugly table lamp replacing the then ubiquitous neat colorful CRTs, and on the hobbyist software developing side of things, Macs are a strain as Apple continually add more barriers to development and random bouts of courage and there's always a segment of users that expect you to work with that. 😐 Supporting Win95 in 2020 is more comfortable than trying to get something out and working on OSX Catalina

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2020-04-25, 01:33:

I never heard any Mac users complain about the reliability of the Intel CPU. But there was an issue with CPU throttling but I think that was a Apple problem.
In any case. I think Apple has bigger problems with the Mac's in keyboard issues, and faulty logic board solder jobs.
The Intel CPU has served the Apple computer well over the years in use.

Apple users complained back when Apple did the PPC-to-Intel switch. A month later they stopped complaining. Like I said. Apple users just want the darn thing to work. What ticks under the hood, are for most apple users, something they dont want to care about. To them it is just black magic. Not calling them stupid, they just dont care.

You'd think if they were going to switch CPUs completely they would have done it before pissing people off by dumping 32-bit support. They're going to be a lot more pissed when the 64-bit apps that they've just been forced to upgrade to (in many cases paying for the privilege) run like crap due to being emulated on ARM.

But the switch to 64bit was a step towards ARM64...

They might have said that, but it makes little sense when they're completely different architectures. Either it will be emulated (in which case so could 32-bit be emulated) or a transition to ARM will be required (making the first transition pointless).

Honestly, Apple has said nothing about this 😉

It's interesting to see some people here, who thinks that Apple will instantly replace every Intel CPU in portfolio with their own ARM SoC. Nothing can't be further from the truth. They'll start either with completely new notebook line, or reintroduce MacBook line once again, this time with ARM. Rest of the portfolio will stay with Intel, at least for foreseeable future. If they wanted to replace Intel for whole portfolio, why they would be releasing all new Mac Pro?

Also regarding apps, they never had a problem to throw app devs under the bus, if they wanted to change their architecture completely. They'll either adapt or will be left behind. Companies like Adobe most likely received healthy payment to recompile their apps to ARM. And did you think, that Project Catalyst was born out of nowhere, just like that? Think again...

Judging from how Apple switched platform before or whenever they switch something else, I'd say there will no parallel platforms.
Once Apple commits, it fully commits

Dominus wrote on 2020-04-25, 09:33:

Honestly, Apple has said nothing about this 😉

It's been a rumor for some time now but it just made the local Silicon Valley TV news the other day. They confirmed that it was true.

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2020-04-25, 13:00:

Dominus wrote on 2020-04-25, 09:33:

Honestly, Apple has said nothing about this 😉

It's been a rumor for some time now but it just made the local Silicon Valley TV news the other day. They confirmed that it was true.

AFAIK Apple did not confirm this. Intel did however 😀
But please post the Apple confirmation, I'd like to read that.

Dominus wrote on 2020-04-25, 14:17:

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2020-04-25, 13:00:

Dominus wrote on 2020-04-25, 09:33:

Honestly, Apple has said nothing about this 😉

It's been a rumor for some time now but it just made the local Silicon Valley TV news the other day. They confirmed that it was true.

AFAIK Apple did not confirm this. Intel did however 😀
But please post the Apple confirmation, I'd like to read that.

Apple is like the the BIGGEST company in Silicon Valley. You would not want to posts false rumors unless you wanted to get sued.
So when the local news reported this I was shocked. And I guess it must be true then.
The San Francisco TV news station would not posts false news about Apple unless they had an reliable source.
And they mostly confirmed it with Apple before posting the news.

Maybe it will just be the Macbook line. I don’t know
But it seems pretty drastic to switch the iMac and Mac Pro to ARM CPU’s.

So it is not confirmed and still a rumor.
Of course it is pretty good rumor and most likely true, but rumors about what Apple plans have been going on for years and sometimes they are spot on and other times not so much. Not much suing has been done by Apple in regards to that. Apple confirms by updating their store or by keynotes.
Confirmed is when they can report that Apple person XYZ said/confirmed something.

You can already buy an ARM workstation with 32 cores, complete with up to 512 GB of RAM and a workstation-class GPU. I assume the hypothetical ARM-based Mac Pro will be similar in architecture.